Free Speech Farce: Rise of American Fascism

COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- America is facing a new fascism that does not tolerate any views it doesn't like -- where "wrong" speech is being hounded, demonized and shouted down.

The head of Mozilla, maker of Firefox web browser, was forced to step down because he gave money to a campaign several years ago that was against gay marriage.

Brandeis University recently withdrew an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an internationally acclaimed champion of women's rights and a victim of female genital mutilation and forced marriage, because her opposition to Islam was deemed offensive.

Across the Water

If you want a glimpse into how bad it could become in the future, Americans need not look any further than across the Atlantic to Western Europe.

Transplant American conservative values of 'God, country and traditional family' in Western Europe and, more likely than not, you'd be branded "extreme right," "anti-woman," "homophobic," and even "Nazi."

If you're against radical Islam or immigration, you can be labelled a racist. Wave your nation's flag too much and you're a fascist.

And should you be brave enough to demonstrate publicly for a conservative cause or run for office on conservative principles, you could be physically attacked or, in Sweden, your home might be wrecked.

"You could get beaten up. We see that in Sweden. You have these so called 'anti-fascists' coming to known right-wingers' homes and wrecking their apartments," Hedegaard said. "They go destroy the furniture, tear up the books, and then they make a video of it and put it out on the web."

Under the banner of "fighting racism," left-wing radicals terrorize those who dare to speak out against the Left's experiment in multiculturalism.

"They call them 'anti-racists' or they fight for a 'better environment' and a 'more humane society,' but their goal is to smash democracy as we know it. They're revolutionary communists," Kim Møller, a leading expert on the extreme, violent left groups in Denmark, said.

"If you say you want revolution, people say you're crazy, but if you say you want to fight racism, people support that," Møller said.

Free Speech Farce

Throughout Western Europe, those who hold to American-style conservative values are the outsiders.

Freedom of speech -- the right to say things the majority doesn't like -- is gone in most of Europe, including Britain, George Igler, with Discourse Institute in London, says.

"No, Britain is not a country that has free speech. Britain is not a country that has the rule of law," Igler said.

"We have populations who believe they have free speech and then they do something, maybe they tweet something a politician doesn't like, and a knock comes on the door and they realize they don't live in the same kind of democracy they thought they lived in," he added.

Last week, Liberty Party candidate Paul Weston was arrested in Winchester for publicly repeating Winston Churchill's criticism of Islam, in which Churchill wrote about the "curses of Islam."

It's a similar situation in France, where Libertarian publisher Jean Robin described how the government and the media seem to work in tandem to control information and what viewpoints people will see.

Many conservative Europeans cope by simply not expressing their opinions publicly.

"Americans who look at Europe idealistically just don't have a clue," Christopher Doss, with the Leadership Institute near Washington, D.C., said.

Doss studied at the University of Oslo in Norway and still works in European politics. He said America risks going the way of Europe, especially because most of our universities are training young people to be intolerant.

"We're headed in the same direction as we unlearn liberty, as students go through four years or more of college indoctrination, they become inculcated with the notion that all speech shouldn't be allowed," Doss said.

If this new fascism is not turned back, life for conservatives in America could become very unpleasant, as it already is for conservatives in Europe.

**Editor's note: This article uses the American meaning of "conservative." In Europe, conservatives are called "liberals."